"I ended up getting unbelievable experience in JAG. My first trial was a first-degree murder trial. I tried 300 cases in JAG, including six murder trials. I loved my time in JAG Corps, after going in kicking and screaming," he said.

He did not avoid Vietnam, however. After starting at U.S. installations, Lamberth eventually served in Cam Ranh Bay and the Mekong Delta. The bases were shelled at night, and most days, Lamberth flew by helicopter to hold trials in advance fire bases in hostile territory. It led to extraordinary pressures on the military prosecutor and judge, who flew with Lamberth to the fire bases.

"At the end of the day, you would want to get on the last chopper out. By 4:30, you would stipulate to just about any testimony," Lamberth said. "You did not want to be on the fire base overnight. Sometimes the fire base could get overrun and everybody would be killed or wounded."

Lamberth reupped when his four years ended. At the Pentagon, he joined the litigation division for cases involving the Army in federal court. The unit helped shape new law—including a Supreme Court case that upheld disciplinary actions for behavior unbecoming of an officer. He also persuaded federal courts to uphold the administrative discharges of all soldiers involved in the My Lai massacre.

"These were tremendous cases," Lamberth said. "It was the best job I ever had, to this day."

U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines of the Western District of Pennsylvania said she had no military tradition in her family and no expectation of signing up. That changed when a fellow law student invited a group of friends to hear a JAG Corps recruiter before they went out to dinner.

Haines said she became transfixed sitting in a law school auditorium as a second-year student.

"I thought, 'Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I want to do,'" she said. "It's an opportunity to serve my country. This is where I really see myself."

Haines was assigned to Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division. "I was told, 'You're getting ready to enter the oldest, largest and best law firm in the world,'" she said.

"I loved putting on that uniform. It humbled me every time I did it," she said. "It was just the honor of a lifetime to say that I supported and was a very small part of the military in service to our country."

U.S. District Judge Carlos E. Mendoza of the Middle District of Florida is a first-generation son of naturalized citizens, whose father immigrated from Colombia and whose mother came from Honduras. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school, serving in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. When he graduated from law school in 1997, he entered the Navy JAG Corps.

"I had a desire to continue serving," Mendoza said. "Growing up we were always reminded that in this country, unlike almost anywhere else in the world, ambition, hard work and drive dictate what heights you will reach."

"The mentoring of young attorney officers is second to none," he said. "I was impressed that they not only wanted us to become capable attorneys, but honorable people, as well."

Judge Carl Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit received his entire elementary and secondary education in segregated schools. "It was just a tough time. I was growing up in a period with a lot of hatred," Stewart said. "In school, we often had substandard equipment and books. I had hope that things would get better, but there was no real evidence they would get better."

Stewart entered law school during the Vietnam War era. After getting a low draft number, he joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. By graduating and passing the bar on his first try, he was able to join the JAG Corps as a captain, instead of as a second lieutenant in the regular Army.

"Suffice it to say, I had a lot of incentive to study hard," Stewart said.

He was quickly thrown into representing clients. Among his clients at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio were soldiers in a severe-burn unit. "I was a 24-year-old lawyer, green as the uniform," Stewart recalled. "It was a growing up experience. There was no time to be nervous, no time to be scared."

Stewart said representing those burn victims remains one of his greatest satisfactions. "It drilled into me that being a lawyer is a service profession," Stewart said. "Mine was a small part, but to know you brought satisfaction to these soldiers and their families, I can't measure that."

Federal Judicial Center Director John Cooke rose to brigadier general and the top U.S. Army JAG Corps lawyer in Europe. He said America's military justice system dates back to the Revolutionary War. Since 1950, the military justice system has been governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The system has many parallels to the civilian justice system, especially in the areas of rules of evidence and standard of proof, but also distinct differences. Commanding officers bring charges, convene jurors, and can reduce or even commute sentences. Personnel can be charged with such violations as insubordination or malingering.

"It was one thing after another, where I had great bosses who gave me opportunities, which led to attractive job offers," Cooke said. "I just sort of thought, 'I'll do a couple of more years.' Pretty soon it was a career."

"If people were perfect, we wouldn't need law and we wouldn't need armies," Cooke said. "The army's mission is to fight the nation's wars and defend the country. But an unstated part of that mission is to do so in ways that are consistent with the law. If we don't do that, then what we are defending is going to fall apart from within."

Cooke said military life surprised him because his bosses cared about his well-being and that of his family. "I had seen the Army as a kind of a tough macho organization with cigar-chomping colonels," Cooke said. "It really was a much more caring organization than a lot of corporations. That has carried with me."